Healthy Nurse, Healthy Nation™

ANA defines a healthy nurse as one who actively focuses on creating and maintaining a balance and synergy of physical, intellectual, emotional, social, spiritual, personal and professional wellbeing. A healthy nurse lives life to the fullest capacity, across the wellness/illness continuum, as they become stronger role models, advocates, and educators, personally, for their families, their communities and work environments, and ultimately for their patients.

Nurses at 3.6 million strong and the most trusted profession, have the power to make a difference! By choosing nutritious foods and an active lifestyle, managing stress, living tobacco-free, getting preventive immunizations and screenings, and choosing protective measures such as wearing sunscreen and bicycle helmets, nurses can set an example on how to BE healthy.

Accessible to all registered nurses and RN students, ANA is providing a comprehensive health risk appraisal (HRA) in collaboration with Pfizer Inc, free of charge. This HIPAA-compliant HRA gives nurses real-time data on their health, safety, and wellness, personally and professionally. Nurses can compare their results to national averages and ideal standards. Upon completion of the HRA, nurses can access a web wellness portal. The HRA builds nursing data, inclusive of all ages and both sexes. Although the HRA is still open, preliminary results are now available through a new Executive Summary.

Just think, if all 3.6 million registered nurses increase their personal wellness and that of just some of their family, community, co-workers and patients, what a healthier world we would live in!

ANA has demonstrated its commitment to "Healthy Nurse, Healthy Nation™" and safe and healthy work environments through our Nursing Practice and Work Environment department. We are here to assist you on your wellness journey, increasing safe and healthy personal and professional practices.

New Tobacco Free Website
The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality has established a new website, BeTobaccoFree.gov, "designed to give you one-stop access to information and tools that can help you quit smoking for good."

Nursing as a health care profession and environmental health as a public health discipline share many of the same roots. This document articulates and expands on ten principles to guide registered nurses in providing nursing care in a manner that is environmentally safe and healthy. By doing so, this document challenges nurses to rediscover their profession’s traditional environmental health roots and to operation from these roots and principles in their roles as health care advocates and providers.

To help prevent nurse back injuries from moving patients, ANA created this brochure on safe patient handling, including best practices for lifting patients, how to choose lifting devices, and the myths of ergonomics.

The American Nurses Association (ANA) is encouraging registered nurses (RNs) to live tobacco-free lifestyles with the assistance of new resources designed to help nurses serve as health and wellness role models for patients, families and communities.

In this 6/12/12 interview with BestNursingDegree.com, Suzy Harrington, DNP, RN, MCHES, the director of ANA’s Center for Health, Safety, and Wellness discusses efforts to promote nurse health and wellness as well as the ANA Healthy Nurse Conference.